1.0 Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to beverage container holders adaptable for use with multiple beverage containers, and in multiple soft and hard surfaced locations including couches, beds, vehicles and picnic blankets over grass.
2.0 Description of the Related Art
People frequently enjoy various types of beverages in multiple different locations. These locations could include sitting or lying on couches of varying cushion thickness to read, watching TV in bed, having picnics on a blanket covering a grassy field, resting on the beach sand and driving in a vehicle. Furthermore, one person may be drinking from a traditional handled coffee mug, while another may be drinking from a stemmed beverage container including, but not limited to, a wine glass, and both desire a unified convenient location to rest their different beverage containers. Additionally, while enjoying the beverage it is desirable to be able to listen to digital music in these same locations and store personal effects including, but not limited to, remote controls. However, all these locations present unstable beverage container holder bearing surfaces with a high probability of spilling since all previous beverage container holders are designed with large contact surfaces between the beverage container holder and the support or bearing surfaces. These large contact areas then transfer large forces from the supporting surface to the beverage container resting in the beverage container holder, thereby increasing the likelihood of liquid spilling.
Various beverage container holders or digital music players have been designed to fit into existing car beverage container holders, or sit on top of couch cushions, or be placed between couch cushions for support. For example, US Pat. App. No. 2011/0286622 A1 describes a speaker device insertable into an existing vehicle beverage container holder. However, this invention does not include the ability to hold beverages, it simply enables playing of digital music via a speaker device mounted into a vehicle beverage container holder.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,199,678 describes a beverage container holder capable of being mounted on the arm of a chair and hanging from said arm. However, this invention also does not remove the spilling forces from being transmitted to the beverage container, it also does not allow deployment on vertical locations such as between a bedspring and mattress, or provide the user with a digital music listening capability, or provide a convenient storage area for personal items, or support multiple beverage container designs.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,556,230 B2 describes a beverage container holder designed to rest on a horizontal surface such as a couch cushion or table. However, this invention does not isolate the beverage from the external spilling forces, it also does not allow deployment on vertical locations such as between a bedspring and mattress. It also does not facilitate digital music playing or personal item storage.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,231,094 B1 describes a beverage container holder capable of being clamped to various surfaces however it does not enable the user to rest a beverage on a horizontal or vertical surface, or isolate the beverage from spilling forces, or provide personal effects storage, or digital music playing.
Beverage container holder prior art embodiments do not facilitate use of the beverage container holder in multiple horizontal and vertically mounted locations and do not mitigate transmission of beverage spilling forces from the mounting location. The prior art also fail to simultaneously accommodate both stemmed and non-stemmed beverage containers including, but not limited to, both stemmed wine glasses and non-stemmed coffee cups, or provide a storage location for personal items including, but not limited to, remote control players and eyeglasses, and also fail to accommodate digital music players and speakers.
In view of the foregoing, a multifunction beverage container holder is desired which provides stable support for multiple beverage container forms including, but not limited to, coffee cups, wine glasses and convenience store “go cups”; storage for personal items including, but not limited to, mp3 players, remote controls, pens, reading glasses; beverage support in multiple orientations and on multiple stable or unstable surfaces and bearing locations; and enabling amplification and transmission of digital music to the proximate person. This multifunction beverage container holder is described more particularly in the following text.
The foregoing examples of related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive, and they do not imply any limitations on the inventions described herein. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.